eMusic: Gems and Junk

I am officially ending my subscription with eMusic today after 10 months of loyal service. Well, not entirely loyal. I attempted to cancel my membership a few days ago, but they bribed me with a bonus package of 25 free songs to stay. Of course, I accepted their offer with the intention of immediately downloading a bunch of songs and then canceling anyway. Suckers! Anyway, I’ve now come to realize that I’ve added over 500 songs to my collection that’ve come from independent labels. Hooray, for me. It certainly was a goal of mine to look into…how did I phrase it then, “underground music”? I really wouldn’t consider myself a music buff without being fully able to spout off a bunch of no-names bands that, well, no one has ever heard of. And that is what this blog is all about, stuff that you have never heard of, and probably never will again. Yes, I am going to share what I’ve dug up in the “underground,” the gems and the junk.

GEMS

1. And One – I first heard of And One after reading up about the “Dark Wave” genre on Wikipedia. There were a slew of bands listed and I probably looked up every one of them. The most mainstream Dark Wave band that I can offer up for an example would have to be Depeche Mode. Lovely, lovely Depeche Mode (who have a concert coming up in August!). And One has a very similar sound to Depeche Mode, with the synthesizer, deep vocals, and a somewhat moody tone. I find music that is both moody and catchy to be a sort of delightful contradiction. Like many of the other bands on the Dark Wave list, these guys are Germans. And I generally consider Germans themselves to be a delightful contradiction, so, this was a gem.

2. Lacrimosa – This band was also on the Wikipedia list of Dark Wave bands. I loved them immediately. All of their albums are themed, and they are all strictly in German. I really enjoyed listening to these songs while simply interpreting them from the emotion in the vocals and music alone. That is rare for me. I usually feel that becoming familiar with the lyrics and knowing what the song is about is a must. In a way, it is liberating that I don’t understand the words, and am in no way constrained by them. Their albums are really the closest I have come to going to an opera in a foreign language. They are fabulous.

3. The Crüxshadows – Also on the Dark Wave list! It is obvious that eMusic has introduced me to a new genre of music with which I can expand my horizons, eh? Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed that I really like this band. Firstly, because I suppose in some capacity it is considered Gothic. My mind always leaps to extremes when I hear the word “gothic.” I picture really depressed teenagers dressed all in black that hate everything (especially sunlight) except the few things that they are overly obsessive and passionate about (which likely has something to do with vampires). Second reason, kind of an extension of the first, take a look at the lead singer of the band:

He honestly goes by the name "Rogue." Yeah, like the X-Men character. One of the female X-Men characters. Despite this, however, I downloaded their music anyway, and have found many of their songs to be very energetic, uplifting, and thought-invoking. Plus, they often incorporate violins! And in no way whatsoever do they compel me to read the Twilight series, so I am safe.

4. Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade – Some time back when I really got into podcasts, I enjoyed the opportunity to hear some cover songs of Pink Floyd on Brain Damage. As a matter of fact, I made a colossal effort to track these songs down afterwards, and ended up finding a cover of the entire Animals album on eMusic. Of course, this album is based on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. I still haven’t read that yet, but I certainly love this album. To hear the entire thing covered by a band as good as Les Claypool was pretty awesome. Hmm…I’ve always had a thought that marriage was like a good cover song (a sweet mixture of what’s new and what’s familiar). Maybe I should marry the Frog Brigade…

On second thought, no thanks.

5. Symphony X – I’m cheating with these guys a little because I bought one of their albums before I joined eMusic. However, I discovered that basically all of their albums are available in the eMusic catalog, which was pretty exciting. These guys are Progressive Metal, and can certainly hold a candle to the infamous Dream Theater (of the same genre, heavily influenced by my fav. band Rush as it so happens). This genre is the playground for nerds who want to become cool, and in my opinion, they often successfully pull that off. As far as Symphony X goes, the nerdish upbringing scenario is more apparent than speculative, given that their guitar player's first name is Romeo. In case you were actually wondering, "What's in a name?" the answer is: you're a nerd, I mean...enough.

Symphony X writes songs based on stories from mythology, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and even a whole album on Milton’s Paradise Lost, among other things. I haven’t undertaken that book yet, either, but all in good time. I don’t suspect it will be a page turner, though. Anyway, I certainly have to be in the mood for this kind of thing, but it has a memorable place in my collection.

Incidentally, I did find a lot of other great bands in the catalog, but I decided to only share the more obscure and previously unheard of in the lot.

JUNK

1. Attrition – I don’t know what compelled me to get this trash. The album (This Death House…) consists of only two tracks: “Crawling,” and “Dead of Night.” They are each roughly 20 min. of constant static and wind simulations mixed in with startling electronic zings and zangs with absolutely no melody. Basically, it is Alfred Hitchcock meets Industrial music, and it is lousy.

2. Edguy – Now, I at least know where I was coming from when I decided to get this band. As it turns out, the lead singer sounds like a bad imitation of Queensrÿche’s lead vocalist Geoff Tate. For the record, Tate is awesome. Metal is just a difficult genre to untangle, but I feel much of its charm comes from it being “over the top.” In almost every sense. With this in mind, somehow the offense of imitation becomes even more repulsive than in other genres.

3. Magma – This one is pretty interesting, actually. These guys did concept albums that revolved around the premise of a group of people fleeing a resource-spent Earth to settle on a planet called Kobaïa. The band even created a unique language, Kobaïan, in which most of the lyrics are actually sung. I guess originally this had a sort of Tolkien appeal to me, as Tolkien constructed his own elvish language, Quenya, for The Lord of the Rings. Being a person that likes a fair bit of Progressive Rock, I don’t ordinarily agree with those that make the argument that the genre is repulsively pretentious. It took listening to jazz fusion mixed in with Kobaïan to see their point. Gag!

As if needing eight members in a rock band wasn't pretentious enough.

4. Lycia – The concluding statement in the review given on eMusic for their album A Day in the Stark Corner, says, “a series of similar sounding pieces which work wonderfully as an extended mood setter.” My “extended mood” was boredom. Utter, utter boredom.


5. Ayreon – Well, here are the opening lyrics of Into the Electric Castle: “Welcome, you have entered the cranial vistas of ‘Psychogenesis.’ This is the place of no time and no space. Do not be afraid, for I am merely the vocal manifestation of your dreams. I am as water, as air, as breath itself. Do not be afraid. Look around, but linger not. Where I lead, you will follow. Mark these words well: Ignite my anger with your delay and punishments will come your way.” Nuff said. Except that the last line is pretty ironic, if you ask me.

Wow. They even look like morons, don't they?

Well, we have come to the end. So long eMusic! I now pass the torch onto my brother, as it so happens that his subscription officially begins tomorrow. Use those downloads wisely, my friend.